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What's at the center of the earth?

The inner core of the earth is a hot, dense solid sphere, composed primarily of iron, with some nickel. Its diameter is about 2400 km, about 19% of the earth's diameter. There is some evidence [see reference 1] that the core is in hexagonal crystalline form, possibly one giant crystal!

Surrounding the inner core is a layer of outer core 2300 km thick. The outer core is liquid, again [2] mostly iron (85%) with some nickel (5%) and some lighter element(s) (10%). The heat-induced roiling in this liquid iron layer is what creates the earth's magnetic field. Together the outer and inner core comprise 1/8 of the earth's volume, but 1/3 of its mass.

On top of the outer core is a layer called the mantle. It's composed mostly of silicate minerals containing magnesium, iron, aluminum, and calcium [2]. The mantle is hot and malleable. It's 2900 km thick (45% of the earth's depth) and comprises 7/8 of the earth's volume and 2/3 of its mass.

On top of all that is the earth's crust. The crust is cool and thin and crispy--it tends to fracture in earthquakes. The crust is 30-50 km thick at the continents and about 10 km thick under the oceans.

The deepest man-made hole is in the Kola peninsula in Russia. It's about 12 km deep, nowhere near reaching mantle. Some holes are being dug in the ocean [3], where the crust is thin, and sometimes they find chunks of mantle in those holes. Volcanoes sometimes spew up chunks of mantle as well, so we do have samples of (upper) mantle to study in the laboratory.

We can also do lab experiments to see what happens to the earth's materials under enormous heat and pressure. That's how we know the olivine structure of magnesium-iron orthosilicate in the upper mantle, for example, converts to the spinel structure in the lower mantle [2,4].

As for the rest of the earth, we have to be a lot cleverer. First, we know the mass of the whole earth based on its gravitational influence on other objects. We know the radius of the earth by looking at the inside cover of our old college physics textbook. This gives us the overall density of the earth. Next, we assume that the solar system formed from one interstellar cloud of crud, which clumped together into the sun and planets and other objects; thus the earth must be made of the same general stuff as the rest of the solar system. Most of that cloud of crud formed the sun, and we know what the sun is composed of by looking at its spectral lines. Other interstellar crud is available here on earth in the form of meteorites. So now we can estimate the general abundances of materials we expect to find on earth. Anything we don't find in the crust or mantle (or in the atmosphere) is probably somewhere inside. The largest unaccounted-for element is iron, so that must be in the core.

But most of our evidence comes from . . . earthquakes! Earthquakes provide a kind of X-ray of the earth. Whenever there's a major tremor, waves propagate from the hypocenter all over the earth. There are two basic kinds of waves, S-waves and P-waves [5]. S-waves, or shear waves, are waves in which the wave amplitude is perpendicular to the direction of the wave propagation, like waves on the surface of a lake, or light waves. P-waves, or pressure waves, have wave amplitude parallel to the direction of wave propagation, like sound waves, or shoving a pulse down a Slinky. The two types of waves have different speeds, and move at different speeds in materials of different density, just like light waves travel at different speeds through materials with different indexes of refraction. And, like light, earthquake waves reflect and refract at material boundaries. For the purpose of analyzing the earth's interior, this is the mother lode. Imagine, if you will, an earthquake. It sends out S- and P-waves in all directions. Some waves travel over the surface of the earth, some travel through the crust, some reflect off layer boundaries, like reflections from a pane of glass. The most famous boundary--between the crust and the mantle--was discovered [6] by Andrija Mohorovièiæ in 1909 after a big earthquake near Zagreb, Croatia. This Mohorovièiæ Discontinuity is also called the Moho for the obvious reason that scientists can't be trusted to spell "Mohorovièiæ" correctly twice in succession.

Earthquakes also give evidence that the outer core is liquid. S-waves are never detected in certain regions of the earth--a shadow zone. Since S-waves don't propagate through liquid, a liquid layer must be forming this shadow. The size of the liquid layer can be determined by the size of the shadow.

Thus, by measuring the speeds of S- and P-waves as they travel through the depths of the earth, and by measuring reflections of those waves off discontinuities, we can put together a density profile of our planet. This profile can be compared to meteorite analyses and the results of the pressure and temperature experiments mentioned, and a fairly good picture of the earth's interior emerges. Alas for adventure lovers, the picture is strikingly different from the one described by Jules Verne in his 1864 movel, Journey to the Center of the Earth.

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Agartha - the Hollow Earth

Perhaps some of the most bizarre scientific theories ever considered were those concerning the possibility that the Earth was hollow. One of the earliest of these was proposed in 1692 by Edmund Halley.

Edmund Halley was a brilliant English astronomer whose mathematical calculations pinpointed the return of the comet that bears his name. Halley was fascinated by the earth's magnetic field. He noticed the direction of the field varied slightly over time and the only way he could account for this was there existed not one, but several, magnetic fields. Halley came to believe that the Earth was hollow and within it was a second sphere with another field. In fact, to account for all the variations in the field, Halley finally proposed that the Earth was composed of some four spheres, each nestled inside another.

Halley also suggested that the interior of the Earth was populated with life and lit by a luminous atmosphere. He thought the Aurora Borealis, or northern lights, was caused by the escape of this gas through a thin crust at the poles.

Others picked up Halley's hollow-earth theory often adding their own twists. In the eighteen century Leonhard Euler, a Swiss mathematician, replaced the multiple spheres theory with a single hollow sphere which contained a sun 600 miles wide that provided heat and light for an advanced civilization that lived there. Later Scottish mathematician Sir John Leslie proposed there were two inside suns (which he named Pluto and Proserpine).

One of the most ardent supporters of hollow-earth was the American John Symmes. Symmes was an ex-army officer and a business man. Symmes believed that the Earth was hollow and at the north and south poles there were entrances, 4,000 and 6,000 miles wide, respectively, that led to the interior. Symmes dedicated much of his life to advancing his theory and raising money to support an expedition to the North Pole for the purpose of exploring the inner earth. He was never successful, but after his death one of his followers, a newspaper editor named Jeremiah Reynolds, helped influence the U.S. government to send an expedition to Antarctica in 1838. While the explorers found no hole there, they did bring back convincing evidence that Antarctica was not just a polar ice cap, but the Earth's seventh continent.

In 1846 the discovery of an extinct wooly mammoth frozen in ice in Siberia was used by Marshall Gardner as evidence of a hollow earth. Gardner subscribed to the single-sun-inside-the-earth theory and suggested that the mammoth was so well-preserved because it had died recently. Gardner thought that mammoths and other extinct creatures wandered freely in the interior of the earth. This one had wandered outside by using the hole at the North Pole, then was frozen and carried to Siberia on an ice flow.

That same decade a new theory about the hollow-earth appeared. It was the brainchild of Cyrus Read Teed. Teed proposed that the Earth was a hollow sphere and that people lived on the inside of it. In the center of the sphere was the sun, which was half dark and half light. As the sun turned it gave the appearance of a sunset and sunrise. The dense atmosphere in the center of the sphere prevented observers from looking up into the sky and seeing the other side of the world. Interestingly enough, Teed's theory was hard for 19th century mathematicians to disprove based on geometry alone, since the exterior of a sphere can be mapped onto the interior with little trouble.

Teed changed his name to Koresh and founded what might today be called a cult. After buying a 300 acre tract in Florida, Koresh declared himself the messiah of a new religion. He died in 1908 without proving his ideas.

Even after his death, though, some continued to subscribe to his theory. A story is told that during World War II Hitler sent an expedition to the Baltic Island of Rugen. There Dr. Heinz Fischer pointed a telescopic camera into the sky in an attempt to photograph the British fleet across the hollow interior of a concave earth. He was apparently unsuccessful and the British fleet remained safe.

After World War II there seems to be a continuing connection between hollow-earth stories and Nazi Germany. One author, Ernst Zündel, wrote a book entitled UFOs - Nazi Secret Weapons? claiming that Hitler and his last battalion had boarded submarines at the end of the war, escaped to Argentina, and then established a base for flying saucers inside the Earth at the South Pole. Zündel also suggested that the Nazis had originated as a separate race that had come from the inner-earth.

As time has gone on the idea of a hollow-earth has become less a theory of fringe science and more a subject of science fiction and fantasy. Perhaps this has happened because new discoveries continue to show there is no validity to most of the hollow-earth ideas. United States Navy Admiral Richard Byrd flew across the North Pole in 1926 and the South Pole in 1929 without seeing any holes leading to inner-earth. Photographs taken by astronauts in space show no entrances either. Modern geology indicates the Earth is mostly a solid mass.

One believer did seize on a NASA photograph showing a black hole at the North Pole and called it proof of an entrance to a hollow-earth. As it turned out the photo was actually a composite of several pictures taken over 24 hours so that all sections were seen in daylight and the black hole at the top was the portion of the arctic circle never illuminated during the day over winter months.

Perhaps one of the most well-known books about hollow-earth is Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. The book illustrates a third theory of hollow-earth which is more plausible than the other two. This is that passages from the surface lead to caverns underground in which life thrives.

In the book three scientists climb down an inactive Iceland volcano in an attempt to find a path to the center of the Earth. They don't make it, but they do find an underground sea populated with prehistoric creatures including plesiosaurs.

Verne may have been closer to that mark than most expected. For years scientists scoffed at the idea of life thriving underground without light to provide energy. Now explorations have found rock-eating bacteria living as far as a mile below the ground. In Romania a whole ecosystem, including spiders, scorpions, leeches and millipedes has been found in a cave cut off from the surface 5.5 million years ago.

In addition to this kind of a hollow-earth there may be a "hollow Mars." A Mars rock in the antarctic suggests that bacteria may have, and might continue to, exist underground on the red planet.

Hollow Earth

The hollow Earth theory holds that Earth is not a solid sphere but is hollow and has openings at the poles. Furthermore, an advanced civilization, the Agartha, exists within Earth. Their people include advanced spiritual and technological masters who sometimes foray into the atmosphere in their UFOs.

In the late 17th century, British astronomer Edmund Halley proposed that Earth consists of four concentric spheres and also suggested that the interior of the Earth was populated with life and lit by a luminous atmosphere. He thought the aurora borealis, or northern lights, was caused by the escape of this gas through a thin crust at the poles.

In the early 19th century, an eccentric veteran of the war of 1812 John Symmes (d. 1829) promoted the idea of interior concentric spheres so widely that the alleged opening to the inner world was named "Symmes Hole."

John Cleves Symmes

In Hamilton, Ohio, his son erected a monument with a stone model of the hollow earth to commemorate his dad's incessant lobbying for an expedition to the North Pole to find the entrance to the world below. Martin Gardner writes that "It took Byrd's flight over the North Pole to deal a death blow to 'Symmes' hole'". However, later advocates hail Admiral Byrd as having actually gone into the hollow earth at both poles! This strange belief seems to be based on nothing more than the fact that Byrd referred to Antarctica as "The Land of Everlasting Mystery" and once wrote: "I'd like to see that land beyond the (North) Pole. That area beyond the Pole is the Center of the Great Unknown." Such evidence apparently suffices for the alternative scientist.

EdgarAllan Poe used the theme of the hollow earth in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838). Jules Verne wrote Journey to the Center of the Earth in 1864 and Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950), the creator of Martian adventures and Tarzan of the Apes, also wrote novels set in the hollow earth. Legends often ignite the imagination of fiction writers and fiction often ignites the imagination of the pseudoscientist.

In 1869, Cyrus Reed Teed, an herbalist and self-proclaimed alchemist, had a vision of a woman who told him that we are living on the inside of the hollow Earth. For nearly forty years, Teed promoted his idea in pamphlets and speeches. He even founded a cult called the Koreshans (Koresh is the Hebrew equivalent of Cyrus).

In 1906, William Reed published The Phantom of the Poles in which he claimed that nobody had found the north or south poles because they don't exist. Instead, the poles are entrances to the hollow earth.

In 1913, Marshall B. Gardner privately published Journey to the Earth's Interior in which he rejected the notion of concentric spheres but swore that inside the hollow earth was a sun 600 miles in diameter. Gardner, too, claimed that there were huge holes a thousand mile wide at the poles.

Byrd flew over the North Pole in 1926 and over the South Pole in 1929, but he didn't see these entrances to the nether world. It is pointless to point out this fact or to refer hollow earthers to satellite photographs that do not show holes at the poles. They are sure that there is a government conspiracy to cover up the truth.

In the 1940s, Ray Palmer, co-founder of FATE, Flying Saucers from Other Worlds, Search, The Hidden World, and many other pulp publications, teamed up with Richard Shaver to create the Shaver Mystery, a legend of a world of hollow earth people and an advanced civilization. Shaver even claimed to have dwelled with the inner Earth people. According to Richard Toronto, the FBI blamed Palmer and Shaver for concocting "Flying Saucer Hysteria", making them the true founding fathers of modern UFOlogy.

The belief in a hollow Earth had some adherents in Nazi Germany. There is even a legend which says that Hitler and his chief advisers escaped the last days of the Third Reich by going through the opening at the South Pole.

In 1964, Raymond W. Bernard, an esotericist and leader of the Rosicrucians published The Hollow Earth - The Greatest Geographical Discovery in History Made by Admiral Richard E. Byrd in the Mysterious Land Beyond the Poles - The True Origin of the Flying Saucers. Bernard also authored Flying Saucers from the Earth's Interior. His real name was Walter Siegmeister. His doctoral dissertation was entitled "Theory and Practice of Dr. Rudolf Steiner's Pedagogy" (New York University, 1932). In his Letters from Nowhere, Bernard claims to have been in contact with great mystics in secret ashrams and with Grand Lamas in Tibet. He was, in short, another Gurdjieff.

Dr. Bernard died of pneumonia on September 10, 1965, while searching the tunnel openings to the interior of the Earth, in South America. Bernard seems to have accepted every legend ever associated with the hollow Earth idea, including the notions that the Eskimos originated within the Earth and an advanced civilization dwells within even now, revving up their UFOs for occasional forays into thin air. Bernard even accepts without question Shaver's claim that he learned the secret of relativity before Einstein from the Hollow Earth people.

A Look at the Polar Mystery

by Dennis Crenshaw

If our world is solid as we are told common since tells us that the "magnetic" Poles would be where they belong – at the same spot as the "geographical" poles. However, as we know that is not the case.

The Magnetic Poles are not fixed spots, but are constantly traveling onwards, executing an unknown path and apparently completing a circle in a period of many hundreds of years. In addition to this onward movement of a few miles a year, there is a lesser daily oscillation. (1)

What do Gardner and Reed, the presenters of The Hollow Earth Theory have to say on this subject?

In gravitational pull it is not the geometrical position that counts. Center, in the geometrical sense of the word, does not apply. It is the mass that attracts. And if the great mass of the earth is in its thick shell, it is the mass of that shell that will attract, and not a mere geometrical point which is not in the shell but 2900 miles away from it, as that is the approximate distance between the center sun and the inner surface of the earth. As a matter of fact it is the equal distribution of the force of gravity all through the shell. When we are on the outside of the shell it is the mass of the shell that attracts us to the surface. When we go over to the inside of the shell the same force will still keep our feet solidly planted on the inner side. (2)

So, according to Gardner, it's not some action deep within our Earth which causes gravity and the Earth's magnetism but the rotation of the mass which makes up the crust. To understand where a "magnetic" pole would be if the world were made-up as envisioned by the two fathers of the Hollow Earth Theory we turn to William Reed:

If the center of the walls of the earth is the center of gravity, then the greatest attraction would be at the poles. [the place where the magnetic pull would be the strongest] "must have been about halfway around the curve, entering the introit of the earth and, if so, was in perfect accordance with the laws of the universe that the center of gravity is strongest at this point. (3)

Gardner agrees with Reed. The magnetic poles would actually form a circle around the pole-hole. Not a "moving" pole as in the accepted theory, but a permanent "ring" around the alleged entrance into the inner lands.

One Pole -Two Poles -Three Poles - More?

On July 19, 1947 a group of scientists left Ottawa Canada aboard a plane with the mission of finding the exact position of the North Magnetic Pole. Included in the tons of equipment they loaded aboard was "a new instrument that is expected to be helpful in taking magnetic soundings and establishing the northern magnetic field" (4)

On August 17, 1947 The New York Times reported:

Polar Shift Confirmed. Canadian Scientists Report a Movement 200 Miles North

Ottawa, Aug. 16, 1947 – The North Magnetic Pole seems to have moved 200 miles north since the year 1909 according to the first findings of four scientists of the Canadian Department of Mines and Resources, who left here by air July 19 in quest of the poles present position. (5)

This seems to fit the accepted theory OK. No surprises here. But then the United States Air Force tried to slide one by us. on Monday, October 20, 1947 the following front page story was carried by The New York Times:

All Arctic Is Open To The Air Force; 2 New Poles Found.Tests show 3 Magnetic Poles Instead of 1, With Center on Prince Wales Island by Anthony Leviero

Washington, Oct. 19, 1947 –

The Air Force disclosed that it had discovered two new magnetic poles, in addition to correcting the position of the one recognized by science the three poles constitute an elliptical magnetic field. (6)

Upon finding this article in the Jacksonville Florida Public Library microfilm files I had to rush to a dictionary. Just as I suspected, Webster's Seventh defined elliptical as being a "deviation of an ellipse or a spheroid from the form of a circle or a sphere. Ellipse is defined as "an oval". Of course, this is never talked about. As could be expected the article goes on to state "the exact location in latitude and longitude of these important discoveries in terrestrial magnetism were withheld for security reasons, a spokesman said" Under the rug!

However a little bit more of what was found out did slip through the net. In a scientific editorial in The New York Times published on October 21, 1947 we learn:

Magnetic Trinity

This military study of the polar regions has unexpectedly supplied us with new information on terrestrial magnetism. Observers of the Royal Air Force found that the North Magnetic Poles lies 300 miles north-northwest of its charted position. These findings have not only been confirmed by American Army pilots but have been supplemented with the information there are three magnetic poles in the area 450 miles long by nearly 200 miles wide. (7)

The Poles Explained

Is it just a coincidence that these documented findings fits exactly the description of what the founders of the Hollow Earth Theory said would be found? As with most of the earthly mysteries, the "mysteries" of the poles are easily understood when looked at using the concept of a hollow globe.

The poles do not from spot to spot and there are not three separate poles. This is a classic example of the results of the establishment scientists trying to "fit" the know facts to their "sacred cow" of a theory. The actual explanation is simple. As different explorers start over the edge of the lip into the interior lands they think they have "discover" that the pole has moved or that they have "found" a new magnetic pole. It's also possible that they are taking readings from different areas of the circle which surrounds the pole-hole exactly where Reed and Gardner said the magnetic field is located.

In the words of the author of the Oct.21, 1947 New York Times scientific editorial quoted above:

We begin to understand why explorers have reported that the Magnetic North Pole is elusive and that it shifts its position. But is it shifting? If the three magnetic poles remain fixed, if other poles are found, which is not improbable, we shall have to think of an ellipse-shaped magnetic region. (8)

Another scientific fact which supports the Hollow Earth Theory, yet totally ignored by the "experts".

(3)The Phantom of The Poles< William Reed. New York. 1906. Reprinted 1990.

(4)"12 "To Hunt Magnetic Pole 2 Months in Arctic". July 20, 1947.

(5)"Polar Shift Confirmed", The New York Times, August 17, 1947.

(6)"Two New Poles Found:", The New York Times, October 20, 1947.

(7)"Magnetic Trinity", The New York Times, October 21, 1947

(8)Magnetic Trinity. The New York Times. October 21, 1947

The intriguing question of a hollow Earth has attracted the attention of free thinkers, scientists and a wide assortment of crackpots back through the ages

Plato wrote of enormous subterranean tunnels both broad and narrow that made up the earth's interior. Dr. Edmund Halley, of comet fame, believed that all heavenly bodies were hollow and in a speech before the members of the Royal Society of London stated "Beneath the crust of the Earth, which is 500 feet thick, is a hollow void". Then there was Leonard Euler (1707-1783), noted mathematician and one of the founders of higher mathematics. He stated that "mathematically the Earth has to be hollow". He also believed there was a center sun inside the Earth's interior, which provided daylight to a splendid subterranean civilization.

Next came Captain John Cleves Symmes, war hero of the War of 1812. Once his studies led him to believe in a Hollow Earth, he used his knowledge to convince James McBride, a Miami Ohio millionaire. Mr. McBride used his political connections to Rep. Richard M. Johnson (D) of Kentucky [later vice-president under Van Buren 1837-18411] to petition congress to finance an expedition to claim the lands inside the earth for the U.S. The petition, by a vote of 56-46 was tabled.

The Hollow Earth was next theorized by William Reed in his 1906 book The Phantom of The Poles. Based on his studies of early Arctic explorations and scientific evidence, he states that the Earth is not solid as widely believed, but hollow with openings at both ends. In the summary of his revolutionary theory, Reed states "The Earth is hollow. The Poles, so long sought, are phantoms. There are openings at the northern and southern extremities. In the interior are vast continents, oceans, mountains and rivers. Vegetable and animal life are evident in this New World and it is probably peopled by races unknown to dwellers on the Earth's surface"

Marshall B. Gardner reached the same conclusions after 20 years of research and published his finding in A Journey to the Earth's Interior, or, Have the Poles Really Been Discovered? in 1913, revised 1920. He was unaware of Reed or his theory at the time. Mr. Gardner puts forth the argument that neither Cook nor Peary reached the True North Pole since, according to the theory, it does not exist. Mr. Gardner states "Scientific societies that considered Cook's and Peary's claims concluded that in neither case could it be said authoritatively that the explorer had reached the pole".

This controversy still exists today.

Science fiction writers have had a field day with the theory. Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, Edgar Rice Borrough's Tarzan at the Earth's Core and scores of other authors have let their talents run wild in the Inner World. Grade-B film makers know a good theme when they find one also.

Then there are those people who claim to have visited the interior of our planet. Olaf Janson's "The Smoky God"" is one such story that comes to mind.

Another is EDIDORPHA or The End Of The Earth by John Uri Lloyd published in 1895.

Ray Palmer was one of the first researchers and reporters on the UFO scene during the 50s and 60s. In his ground breaking publications Flying Saucers" and Search Magazine, he speculated that, because UFOs have been seen in earth's sky throughout history , they may very well be from our earth, in fact, evidence seemed to indicate that UFOs could very well come from a subterranean world inside our earth.

Then on the cover of Flying Saucers magazine issue #69 - June 1970 and in issue #92 of Search Magazine published in July of 1970, the late Mr. Palmer published a photo that is still a controversy. Excerpts from his Editorial in the above mentioned Flying Saucers magazine tell it best;

On the cover this month we reproduce the most remarkable photo ever made.

It was taken by the ESSA-7 satellite on November 23, 1968 the North Pole photo lacking clouds in the polar area, therefore reveals the surface of the planet. Although, surrounding the polar area, and north of such areas as the North American continent and Greenland and the Asian continent, we can see the ice-fields 8-foot thick ice we do not see any ice fields in a large circular area directly at the geographic pole. Instead we see THE HOLE. In 1981 I came into possession of another group of NASA photos showing earth from deep in space which, not only substantiates the ESSA-7 photos, but adds weight to another feature of the hollow earth theory.

At this point any practical person will start to ask themselves, if this is all true why isn't it common and accepted knowledge. As Ray Palmer said in one of his articles

A government that will not tell you what they know about UFOs would certainly keep the origin of them a secret.

Then there are those researchers who say some of us spend entirely too much time looking at the poles.

Certain researchers swear the earth is shaped like a giant doughnut and that holes at the poles provide an entrance into the inner lands. "Not so" shouts another group. "Entrance to the interior world can be gained only by entering a cave and discovering the subterranean tunnels".

Most of the people who claim to have visited the inner lands arrive there through old mine shafts, caves and subterranean tunnels. Others claim to have traveled through extent volcanoes. There is good solid evidence supporting all these theories. Evidence also supports the possibility of other hidden entrances to the inner realms in The Bermuda Triangle and other strange areas around the world.

One of these areas of interest in the Pacific Northwestern area of the United States. It was in this area that the name "flying saucers" was first heard.

On June 24, 1947, Kenneth Arnold, a businessman and commercial pilot from Boise, Idaho, was flying his small private airplane past Mount Rainier, in Mount Rainier National Park, State of Washington, when he sighted a strange formation of nine brightly gleaming heel shaped craft skipping across the atmosphere like saucers across a lake. He related this unusual experience to newsmen and news of the mysterious objects dubbed "flying saucers" was spread nationwide.

UFOs are quite common in the area. In fact the thousands of miles of untrodden land that makes up the extreme Northwestern part of America hides many unexplained mysteries. This is the land of Bigfoot & Sasquatch (as the local Native Americans call him).